


draw my progression line

by samarasharazi



Series: you see my hope was all but gone [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Drug Addiction, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mathematics, Overdosing, Past Drug Use, Swearing, cute fluffy high school fic turned a bit slutty, implied renmin, jaemin just loves renmin im sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 05:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20402299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samarasharazi/pseuds/samarasharazi
Summary: Donghyuck really hates maths, but apparently Mark Lee doesn't.Of course he doesn't, he's the residential nerd afterall.





	draw my progression line

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you like this fic, i've never done one-shots before so this is a mew experience for me. hope you love a story that is basically about me but put into characters. i love procrastinating for my maths tests.
> 
> also, sorry in advance for my lack of knowledge about the Canadian education system, i had to figure out a state that had exams at the end of the year. Vancouver was the right place for me i guess. i realy based it off my own schooling here in Australia so i don't even know if you guys have reception/year 0/prep (we call it prep in my state)
> 
> warning for drug reference and discussion of overdose.

Donghyuck couldn't believe the pain in his fucking hand was what woke him up in the middle of the night, all while his throat caught in a moment of nausea as he recollected where he was. He supposed it might've been a good thing if he didn't want to walk around with a neck cramp during his test. Oh fuck, his _test_.

Donghyuck had fallen asleep sitting by his desk late that night, the desk light illuminating all the dust particles that danced through the darkness of the night and over his tanned skin. All spread out in front of him were his maths notes all redone for the test he had only in a few hours, different colours sorting out all the topics that he had to revise for.

If he had to be truthfully honest, he’d lost his reference book that he was allowed to bring into the test and hadn’t bothered to check until that night, sending him into a monumental frenzy no one was ready for. Having not bothered to study until that night, cans upon cans of energy drinks piled the floor with his scrap pieces of paper as every hour passed and more notes were set aside.

Math was Donghyuck’s worst subject, no matter what his mother tells other oldies over a glass of wine, he _sucked_ at it. Doesn’t matter if it’s the lowest grade of mathematics that he’s in, he just hated it and it hated _him._

They’ve already held up the flag of surrender, there’s no bad blood between them anymore. Donghyuck doesn’t reckon he’ll die from maths. Yet.

You would think that the son of Chemistry professor and an anaesthetist would guarantee you good grades and a horrible sense of fashion, right? Turns out that it was the complete opposite for Lee Donghyuck, final year fashionista ready to take on the uni set of life. A life that did _not _include math.

Dragging himself to his bed, he whined a little as he looked back to the amount of notes he had to stick in and suddenly wondered if his calculator had charge. Did his calculator have charge? What setting was it set in? Degree or Radian? The little wide beady eyes on his face indicated that the last he’d checked it, it was on the lowest battery.

It’s fine, Renjun had once told him that he was pretty enough to become a become stripper if it really came down to it, but that maybe he would need to develop some of his ‘sexy’ skills before then. Skills that he’d once tried on his other friend, Jeno, and successfully managed to catch his feet somehow around the chair, landing face first on the timber floor. That day he left the hospital with a broken shoulder and bruised eye.

Everyone had agreed to not give the real story.

Donghyuck couldn’t be much bothered to go brush his teeth or shower, he saw the clock and it showed **1:27 **in the morning, it was too late for even him to wake up his sister. That would just be plain out mean.

He wondered what it would be like if he was a bit like his parents, seen by everyone as the Golden Child that his sister turned out to be, not a disappointment each time someone looks at his grades and asks why they looked like that. He can’t answer why.

Thankfully, Donghyuck had already made the wise decision in life to shower and put on his pyjamas before rewriting his notes and easily rolled into his soft pillows and comforters, sighing with contentment the second his back felt the softness he didn’t have before. He loved his bed too much, queen size from when he’d cried and begged his parents for a bed upgrade on his 16th birthday, claiming that you couldn’t leave a grown boy on his old and smaller one. After so many crocodile tears and unnecessary headaches, he’d managed to successfully convince his parents into buying him the bed of his dreams with a massive bed foundation that was black and had a nice gothic headboard like what you see in all those Pinterest posts he scrolls through instead of studying.

Donghyuck just wanted a pass tomorrow, no call up to his parents explaining yet again another failed mark that would have to go on his report and especially in his final year. Maybe above a sixty percent would be nice too, or a sixty-five. He could only dream. He hoping for an eighty.

He went to sleep dreaming of an A+ in his hand.

-

“I swear to you on my Gucci slippers that I lost it, swear it on my sex life,” Donghyuck threw out his pinkie finger, hair a craze as he helplessly followed Renjun and Jaemin down the corridor like a rag doll.

“You’re not supposed to swear on things you don’t have,” Renjun snorted. Jaemin high-fived him and kept walking.

This is why Donghyuck hated friends.

“Listen! My test is in like ten minutes and I still don’t have a calculator, surely one of you can lend me yours.”

Finally, they paused by Jaemin’s classroom and stood there, dubious looks on all their faces. Even Donghyuck. Sometimes he really hated himself too.

After a moment of silence, Jaemin’s Global Politics classmates zooming past them and into the classroom before the teacher arrived, Renjun finally gave in and sighed. He threw down his backpack and rummaged through all the pieces of ignored science papers and finally found what he was looking for, grunting when he took it out and gave it to Donghyuck.

The boy squealed despite his beating heart and threw himself into his friend’s unsuspecting arms, swinging around like a monkey on a tree. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ice cream’s on me today after school, both of you,” he said so breathlessly, watching as the two perked up immediately and looked at each other from either side of him.

“But I want two scoops,” Jaemin warned and pouted a little. Boy really liked his different types of chocolate flavours, it was preposterous.

Donghyuck huffed a little in annoyance but smiled at his friend, throwing him a finger heart that made Renjun groan and Jaemin smile.

“I gotta go either I’ll be late to the test and I’m already going to fail it, I don’t want to get a zero at least. Ciao!” with one final goodbye, Donghyuck left his friends to proceed to their own classes and ran to his own hallways away in the Maths wing of the school.

Most of the kids were already seated and waiting for the teacher at the front of the class to give out their papers, a mixture of excited and anxious looks on their faces. _Who in their right mind gets excited over a math’s test,_ Donghyuck wondered as he took his seat at the back of the class where all the tables were split for test conditions. _Mark would be,_ and he was right, the boy with the Harry Potter glasses and over-sized jumper sitting by the windows had a nervous smile on his face, leg twitching under the desk.

It was almost endearing how cute the boy could be at times, only if Donghyuck didn’t despise him with all his heart that is.

The teacher wasn’t looking at him as he sat down and lay his book and calculator on the table, silently taking in deep breaths to calm himself down. It was just a test, nothing more and nothing less.

Once everyone was in the classroom, their teacher, Mr Donley, closed the door and gave out the papers. Donghyuck could only sit there patiently as he drawled up the rows handing out the test very slowly to each student. The teacher was really taking his time and Donghyuck was on the point of rage.

The time started and the fashionista rushed to open the page without writing his name, looking at the first few questions with a bit of a haze that came with every beginning to an examination. Everything was okay, Donghyuck just had to calm down.

A second passed and then two, Donghyuck frowned with each new word coined into a sentence as he read the questions. Did he write down the formula for a residual value? What kind of fucking box plot was that?

Eventually, through the pain and all, he managed to pick up his pen and start writing, taking in his surroundings every few minutes. All the other students looked calm with their heads down and pens on the paper. Mark Lee especially, always the maths whiz.

The handle slowly counted down to the hour and Donghyuck was finishing all his questions as knowledgeably as possible, not wasting any time on checking for mistakes. He only had ten minutes left and he had three more questions to go.

Mr Donley announced that they only had five minutes left, stating that pens will be put down immediately once he ends the test.

Donghyuck allowed himself one glance at the rest of the class, glancing around to see the progress of the other students. Some of them had already finished and were playing with their stationary, mindlessly bored. Some were still going just like him, a frown on their faces as they hurried to finish. And some (by some he only means one) were finished but were going over all their answers twenty times each to make sure they made no mistakes. He was directly targeting the boy with the Harry Potter glasses on that one.

He got to his last question and proceeded to write down the answers and the formulas and got to the last component of the question when it happened. He panicked.

Donghyuck was never good with his calculator, he only knew how to do the basic solve function and weird stuff if he just kept on pressing buttons, but other than that, he was useless. Utterly and overly fucked.

So when the question asked him to sketch the regression line without any of the raw data, Donghyuck didn’t how to do it. He knew how particular his teacher would be and how he would get the question wrong if he didn’t get it right. A random line through the graph wouldn’t suffice.

Amid his panicking and troubles, the time had quickly slipped away and ended. The rough sound of his teacher’s voice broke him out of his reverie and slipped him into something calmer. He dropped his calculator and pen and took a deep breath in, taking a moment to regain some sense of strength before he opened his eyes again.

When he did though, it felt as if someone was staring at him, little curious eyes settled on his figure in his vulnerable state. It alarmed him to know people would do that.

Slowly, Donghyuck turned to the pull and raised a brow when he saw that it was indeed Mark Lee looking at him curiously, all cosy and bundled up in his excessive amount of clothes. The boy looked so comfortable sitting there as he looked to the other boy, full knowing that they were watching at each other and that he was just _staring_. It wasn’t creepy or rude, just calm in the way that Mark looked at him as if he was the only person in the room.

That made Donghyuck heat up. Since when was the heater turned on?

The problem was, Donghyuck wasn’t the only person in the room, and that there was a whole ass man waiting for Mark to close his test papers and hand them over to his teacher. The commotion made the younger boy laugh.

They were dismissed early since they had nothing else to do and everyone rushed to get to the door. School was finished for the day now and especially since it was a Friday everyone was rushing for that early exit if they were privileged enough to have it.

Donghyuck and Mark were the last ones to leave the classroom, saying their goodbyes to the teacher simultaneously before walking out one after the other.

They both snickered the moment they were alone. Donghyuck rolled his eyes at the other boy and flicked his glasses.

“You were staring, nerd,” he spits out, enjoying the way the other boy’s face morphed into something entirely different and pitiful.

Donghyuck will never pity Mark Lee.

But Mark Lee did pity Donghyuck, a family friend from their diaper days when they didn’t know any better. He pitied him because, unlike Mark and the rest of the small world around him, the boy seemed to be lost in everything he did, every word unsure as it slipped from his tongue. Even his breath got a bit slower when he focused on it too much. The boy was a bright blob of mess that no one bothered to clean up.

Still, he managed to get flustered under Donghyuck’s gaze and blushed a bright red. “Nothing, I was wondering if you failed the test or not,” he practically whispered. He really had the audacity to make fun of Donghyuck like that.

He raised his eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I be the one making fun of you? The boy who knows it all, does all three levels of math because he can’t manage himself to get a girlfriend.”

“I do all the maths because I actually happen to like them, Hyuck. Some people actually want to be something in this world unlike you, not rely on their stupid, overpriced wardrobe that their rich parents provided because they were actually the ones who had to _work_,” Mark snapped, every word hitting Donghyuck like shards of glass.

He knew that he was useless, had seen it in the disappointed looks his parents would give him every time he came home, how they would turn away from him whenever he wanted to talk about his interests because, who would want to listen to a boy like him? Did he deserve any of it? No. But Donghyuck kept walking one step forward everyday knowing that he wouldn’t and couldn’t stop what he was doing, who he was.

Donghyuck could feel that Mark knew he hit a nerve somewhere and couldn’t help but wonder what the boy thought about all the time, what occupied his mind when it wasn’t about school. Was there someone, something, a sport he enjoyed? What was it that made the boy something different to plain, so interestingly normal? Did he still think about his past life?

“Don’t call me that. All I wanted to say was that you suck and that if I ever need a tutor for this class, I’m dragging you down with me,” he said finally, pushing his chin up into the warm air and tutted. His objective for the moment was to act like a spoiled brat.

He sure was achieving it.

Mark scowled and turned away from him, picking at his sleeves. He really hated when Donghyuck acted like this.

“Right, I’ll get going then,” he said instead, cooling all his frustration under his skin and smiled robotically. “Have a good weekend, Donghyuck.”

Though Donghyuck had that feeling of mistrust and didn’t like the fact that Mark knew so much about him, he couldn’t deny that the boy had been a ground figure throughout his life. He was always there even when Donghyuck didn’t want him to be. When he fell, Mark would stand behind his friends with a worried look, unable to do anything when the boy wouldn’t _let_ him. The moment he could, he would jump barriers to help the boy he had known his whole life.

So Donghyuck couldn’t let him go without saying something back, maybe apologise, or ask him to come with him and his friends. Maybe he wasn’t brave enough for any of that.

“Bye, Mark. You too.”

-

“Isn’t chocolate fudge and double chocolate the same thing?” Donghyuck asked, outraged.

Jaemin shook his head as he sat there licking away at the sides of his cone, ice cream melting onto the ground and between his open legs. It looked unbelievably messy.

He shrugged and smiled, pulling out some napkins beside them. “One’s chocolatier than the other and the other is creamier. Double choc is a bit cinnamonie too.”

The three of them sat by their favourite ice cream shop, allowing the sun to soak through their skin and melt their dairy treat. It felt good like that, ending the week with something so reminiscent of their childhood.

School would finish in five weeks. Forever.

Donghyuck wasn’t the sort of person to like school everyday, feeling the excitement or the contempt others got when they stepped foot into the grounds. What he was the sort of were the people who felt anxious when they were away from school for too long, like in the holidays when they were gone for weeks at a time. He could barely imagine what would happen when all of it was permanently gone.

He would no longer have the comfort of the halls and lockers, the teachers and the cafeteria. There wouldn’t be any of the students he’d become familiar with over so many years of shared classes and mutual waves in the hallway. Hell, he’d known a lot of them since primary school. Some even younger.

Donghyuck had met both his friends on the second day of reception, not the first. His first day consisted of getting to school and being separated from his parents. As natural as it would seem, the small boy had cried like everyone else and then continued to vomit all his breakfast up. You can imagine how fast the teachers were to dial up his parents in the fit of the moment.

The second day of school was much better than the first. The two little boys, Renjun and Jaemin, had waddled up to the sniffling boy with their heavy backpacks and held out their hands, both patiently waiting for Donghyuck catch up with the situation.

“Hello! You looked really sad so I brought Injunnie over here with me to make you feel better,” was the first thing Jaemin had said to him, the brightest grin on his face. Even back then he was everything anyone had ever admired.

“We will be your best friends forever!” Renjun had added.

That day, he had made two new life-long best friends, shaking both their hands enthusiastically. He’d felt so much better after that, bouncing on his feet when his father came to pick him up once the day ended. In the future, he would pretend it wasn’t rather Mark’s hug when he spotted the boy sad across the grass that set him a good mood, nor the melodious giggles that left his mouth anytime someone would say something remotely funny. He didn’t really think Mark would ever remember such a thing anyway.

“You know, I was thinking a party is due soon. Exams are only in a few months and we won’t have any more chances to have much fun, I think it’ll be good,” Jaemin said suddenly, sitting up in his sticky seat to look at the other two.

Renjun huffed and continued licking at his own cone, not minding himself as a few drips of his mint choc chip dribbled down his fingers. “Jeno would like that; he’s been nagging me for some more party time together since I decline all his invites.”

A party would be nice if Donghyuck thought about it. He himself was never much about studying or caring for his future, a party would be a good distraction from all those demising thoughts. People would finally come together one last time while they were still able to see each other again in the halls and smile, maybe sharing a memory between the two of them about the party. It was meant to be special that way.

He nodded and watched the smile on Jaemin’s face bloom into something more fond, smiling alongside him. “It sounds like a good idea. Would like to see what Renjun would look like drunk in front of his boyfriend, haven’t seen it in a while,” he laughed, high-fiving Jaemin when Renjun pouted in defeat and looked at his melting ice-cream dejectedly.

“I’m not that bad,” he muttered, ignoring his friends’ fits of laughter.

They stayed like that as they spoke more about the party and who would host it. It seemed that Jaemin had the bigger house between the three of them and was more willing to have it at his house. Donghyuck’s own parents were quite strict about little things like that, it would be a wonder if he was even allowed to go a party so close to the date of their exams especially with their trial exams coming only a few weeks before.

In the peak of the moment, Renjun suggested Mark come along to the party along with them and Jeno to help set up, an idea Donghyuck wasn’t overly too fond of. They knew his relationship with the boy was complicated as it was, suggesting such a thing was a plan of disaster.

Nevertheless, he accepted the offer and said he would ask Mark about it. They even called Jaemin’s parents to ask if they were alright with their plan, which unsurprisingly they were. Donghyuck didn’t understand what sort of Asian parent could be so relaxed about something as big as a party, he knew for sure his parents weren’t like that.

They set the date for the party, somewhere before end of school and the trial exams for both IB and their Provincial Examinations. They were guaranteed for many people to come, especially if it was at Jaemin’s house, the nice kid on the block. Renjun and Donghyuck were just the weights holding him down from floating to heaven like the angel he was.

Everyone loved Jaemin.

So they planned it and they talked, and they ate and then they laughed. The sun was soon coming down by the time they got up to drive home, and restaurants nearby started to set their outdoor tables as they said their goodbyes to the owner of the store.

Stores started to open on the main roads and the fairy lights at bars started to be strung up, like little fireflies lining each bar front and twinkling in the setting sun.

Soon, the three went and picked Jeno up from training, newly wet from the showers. He was quick to smother Renjun in the back seat, wrapping his big arms around his boyfriend’s much smaller frame. Donghyuck couldn’t help but notice how Jaemin’s eyes lingered a bit too long on the couple in the back, his breath withheld for the seconds before he reignited the engine. He decided to not comment on it and chose to fiddle with the phone sitting in his lap, cursing himself for catching his friend in such a vulnerable moment.

They all arrived to Donghyuck’s house minutes later, falling out of the car when Jaemin had farted in it and ran the fastest they could to the door. Mrs Lee opened the door for them and was unimpressed when her son ran right past her.

“Hi mummy,” he said to remedy her mood and gave her a kiss on the cheek, smiling when his mother simply just scoffed and walked away. He knows that his mum loves him, it’s okay.

Piling themselves upstairs and into Donghyuck’s room, Renjun laughed when Jeno fell over on Jaemin and his red face and kicked at their feet when he walked in past them. The echoes of laughter rolled down the staircase and onto the floor like a bag of books. It was heavy and suffocating.

Even with the good mood, it felt like something was lagging onto Donghyuck like luggage filled with bricks. The small thread that tightened around his heart and sent his breathing askew went unnoticed and only kept him smiling when his friends directed their attention to the boy in the door.

Everything felt heavy to Donghyuck without him even realising it.

-

One week after that and Donghyuck finally got his maths results back, walking into the classroom with his head held low when he saw the papers stacked neatly on the teacher’s desk.

Again, Donghyuck could see the lack of concern in Mark’s composure as he sat there in his normal seat beside the shining glass. The rays of sunlight reflected in his glasses and ignited his dark curls that looked so frustratingly soft, Donghyuck just wanted to yank them. Everything looked so easy in his position in the room. That jumper that looked ridiculously soft even in the hot heat. The golden cross that hung loose from it, cool in the exposed air. The small smile that jumped onto his lips when his test was given back to him with a red marking of 39/40 on it.

Fuck, he forgot about that.

Mr Donley scowled at him before he passed over the paper, moving on without giving a second glance to the internally dying student.

29/40. He did the math on his phone, 72.5%.

His parents wouldn’t be too happy with this, not like they even would see it in the first place. Donghyuck was fine. He was okay.

But he wasn’t, his hands her clammy where they gripped and crinkled the paper. He could feel the wormhole of disappointment expand in the pit of his stomach and it took all he could not to cry right there in front of everyone.

The fact of the matter is, Donghyuck had been relying on this test to bring up his whole grade and push him into the exams. He’d wanted at least an 80 to walk home with, a satisfied smile on his face. Yet, that didn’t happen, and now he was sad.

In retrospect, the mark was better than any that he’d received in the past year. It wasn’t a bad mark for Donghyuck whatsoever. It was just the hope he put in himself that wasn’t fulfilled the way he wanted it to.

He gave himself the permission to peek over back to Mark’s desk and saw him already learning from the one mark he’d lost, going back in a violet pen to redo the question. _Typical,_ Donghyuck thought and rolled his eyes away from the sight and onto the teacher.

Since they’d already finished all their content for the year it was just now revision for the exams coming up in two months. Handouts were given to them to go over the whole year’s content as part of revision and Donghyuck didn’t know _anything._

In no time at all, the bell rang signalling the start of a new class. Donghyuck had English next, the only subject he was good at.

“Donghyuck, I expect you to learn how to use your calculator by the time it comes to your exams,” Mr Donley stopped him on the way to the door. He waited patiently and smiled at his teacher. “I’ve seen this trend in all your tests and I think you need to properly sit down and work with it.”

The student nodded and looked to all the students slowly filing out of the room, wishing he could be them. “I understand sir. I’ll go over the textbook tonight and look at the CAS notes,” he reassured his teacher, holding onto his books tightly in his hand.

That didn’t satisfy his teacher however, so he turned to the smartest person in the class who was, fortunately or unfortunately, still packing his books and laptop into his bag.

“Mark, I want you to work with Donghyuck over here and show him all the conventions of his calculator. I’m sure it’ll be easy seeing how close you two are.”

Mark was the first one to be shocked by this outcome since he wasn’t even paying attention to their conversation in the first place to be prepared for the new and added responsibility put onto him. Donghyuck reckoned his teacher had this gay vendetta against him. What other explanation could he have?

“Mr Donley?” Mark was confused. He stood straight under the double gaze and coughed uncomfortably into his hand when no one spoke.

“I think that’s a good idea, Mr Donley. We’ll work on it tonight,” Donghyuck nodded and effectively dragged Mark by the wrist. “Have a great day.”

“Thank you!” Mark shouted after him as he was pulled into the hall.

The moment they were out, Donghyuck let go of his hold on the boy and crossed his arms instead. He couldn’t let Mark feel the racing of his heart with how close the two bodies were in the crowded hallway.

Mark held his hands up in mock surrender and cocked his head to the side. “It’s not my fault, please don’t kill me Haechan sir,” he smirked and fuck, who could even look good in Harry Potter glasses?

Donghyuck scoffed and turned away, not wanting to look at his annoyingly beautiful face anymore in the hopes that he wouldn’t embarrass himself. The moment he did however, he felt a soft hand pull gently at his t-shirt, digging gently into his plush skin. He couldn’t help but gasp.

It was hesitant, it was slow, but Mark spun him around with the leverage he had around his hip and smiled at him again when they were turned to each other. It was nerve-wracking to think that it was him that had created that wonderful smile that was on his face now.

“I know you don’t like it but it’ll be easier if I help you rather than anyone else. We both know without you wanting to admit that you’re comfortable enough with me,” he said, his voice soft and curling at the edges. Donghyuck wanted to vomit or kiss those pretty lips. Maybe not both though.

He sighed and gave in, relaxing in Mark’s hold and let go. The boy was right, he didn’t really like anyone in his class and Mr Donley would just get irritated at him if he asked for help. Renjun and Jaemin did the higher maths, so they wouldn’t be of help with either. There was no other way.

“Fine.”

“Great.”

“Fantastic.”

There was a pause when the final bell went for their next class, and Donghyuck distantly remembered he had somewhere to be, in a chair with a desk in front of him. He had actual _friends _in that class. They were writing practice AC’s for their next assessment.

Mark scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. Why was this boy always awkward? “So do you wanna come over or do you want me to come to yours?” he asked innocently.

Ugh, that. “I don’t mind,” he minded.

“Johnny misses you a lot, keeps complaining that he doesn’t see you enough which I don’t understand, he literally saw you last week,” Mark frowned like he was puzzled. He could never Donghyuck’s and his brother’s relationship.

The boy brightened at that and literally bounced on the spot, suddenly a ball of sunshine for Mark. It was admirable.

“Yes, yes! I’m definitely coming over. I’ll even text hyung about it now.”

The unconscious Korean that slipped out of Donghyuck’s mouth made Mark smile. Both of them didn’t speak much of their ‘first’ language since they weren’t fluent in it but the younger boy was somehow more proficient in the language than him. Being born and raised in Canada, both their parents forgot to teach their kids something other than English until they asked for it themselves and sat with their parent’s hours on end to understand. Things like this reminded Mark that they had more similarities than they liked to admit.

“I’ve got a free now but I’ll meet you in the carpark, I’ll drive you.”

Donghyuck nodded and turned away, holding his breath. Mark waved at him walked past to where the entrance for the library would be.

He was literally fucked.

-

“I still can’t believe your parents allowed you to get a car after you trashed their other one,” Donghyuck said as marvelled at the new black BMW Mark sat on. The bribery was admirable.

He laughed when he got off and unlocked the car. “You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re jealous I did that and still got a car and you have nothing.”

Donghyuck couldn’t fault that and bundled himself inside. It was nice, new to say the least. He knew nothing about cars except brands on the road but he could definitely appreciate the leatherwork under his ass, wiggling it nicely to get cosy.

“You like my seat?” Donghyuck got a laugh from Mark and blushed. He couldn’t believe he got caught doing that in front that nerd!

The car ride was relatively silent if it wasn’t for the music they shared between them and the occasional stomach grumbles coming out of Mark’s tummy. It made Donghyuck laugh to no ends and soon they were at Mark’s home with the fashionista bent over at the stomach.

Mark scowled but said nothing, his ears tinted pink when he stepped out of the car. He didn’t wait for the other boy to get out of the car before he entered his own home, locking the car door behind when he heard the car door slam close.

“I’m home!” he shouted and hoped his brother didn’t have his headphones in to not hear him. Mark needed the attention right now.

Donghyuck who was a bit salty for being left behind, walked into the house beside Mark and huffed at his messed hair. One was lucky he was seeing his favourite person for this.

“Hyuck’s here!”

That caused the tall giant to rush down the stairs at rapid speed, flying in the air to catch Donghyuck in his arms. He squealed and giggled, glad to be smothered by Mark’s older brother.

Donghyuck loved Johnny like the brother he never had. Don’t him wrong, he loved his sister to the moon and back, but she wasn’t the brother he always craved, just a whiny bitch that knew how to get on his nerves when they were the thinnest.

“My teddy bear is finally here, Mark you’ve done something right for once,” Johnny exclaimed once he’d torn back his face from Donghyuck’s neck. The boy giggled again. Mark didn’t have time for this.

He tapped his foot against the timber floor and waited, sighing into the thin air. Then he coughed just so he could gain their attention.

“Johnathan, he isn’t here for you, we have to go do work the teacher gave us,” he tried, because honestly, he just wanted him for himself. May it be selfish and conceited, but Mark _really _liked being near Donghyuck alone.

Not that he’d tell the boy.

With an annoyed sigh, Donghyuck detangled himself from the long limbs helplessly attached to him on the floor and stood up.

“I’ll talk to you after we’re done, okay?”

Johnny nodded. “I’ll tell mum you’re staying for dinner,” and with that he ran off to the kitchen where Mrs Lee would be.

Donghyuck could only laugh in his wake and shake his head affectionately, not believing that this fluff ball of an older boy could actually be related to the nerd that was Mark Lee.

That Mark Lee was annoyed that he wasn’t getting the attention he wanted, like a spoilt child he whined without even realising which made Donghyuck look over to him, shocked.

“Should we go study then?” he tried to remedy it, offering himself a way out of this. Donghyuck easily nodded.

They took off their shoes and walked up to Mark’s room without sound and again when they sat down on his bed, waiting. Donghyuck realised it was him they were waiting for and took out his calculator and book. He went and set them on the bed beside him and pulled his hands behind his back.

Like this, there were only inches of space between them, so warm with their mixed body heat that it made Donghyuck sweat. He was so conscious of the movements in his hand that every muscle felt on fire, the tendrils moved on their own with Mark’s own palm open and so close on the bed. It took everything in him not to just grab it and bring it up to his cool cheek, to warm it up with the boy’s own heat.

But that didn’t happen, only the bright rush of blood to his cheeks was evidence of his thoughts. Neither him or Mark commented on the sudden change in the air and opened the textbook.

“So you know the basics of the calculator right?” Mark first tested, taking the calculator gently out of his hand. Everything was gentle with Mark, his hands, his movements, his speech, his mannerisms. He was just a soft person for Donghyuck.

And he loved it so much.

Donghyuck rolled his eyes and pulled up his feet onto the bed to cross them. “You sometimes forget I was in accelerated maths until the second term of this year. I’m pretty sure I know how to use the calculator,” he snipped. Mark took a deep breath and nodded.

“I know that you can do matrixes on this easily so I won’t show you that again,” he looked the textbook, bringing up different topics. “You know how to use the financial solver, right?” he asked.

Donghyuck nodded.

“Ok, we’ll just start with this last topic. Do you know how to plot a graph properly?” he shook his head. Another sigh. Why was he sighing so much? “Then I’ll teach you how to do that.”

So they spent the next thirty minutes going over the different bi-variable graphs that the calculator allowed. He learned that his settings were in exact mode which frustrated him but according to Mark were the right way to give answers unless stated otherwise.

“Yeah, but I don’t understand regression line shit. How the fuck can you draw ne without raw data,” he said at one point, completely frustrated that something so easy could be so difficult to him.

Mark gave him a sympathetic smile. “You mean like the question we were given in the test? Where you have the equation already?” he asked.

“Yes, I could’ve gotten a fucking mark for that shit.”

“Here, look what I do with these buttons. You see?” he showed the screen and entered the line onto the screen. He was a literal wizard, no way else around it. Simple matter of fact.

Donghyuck took that moment to groan and slump down into the bed next to him, totally done with the session. There was no hard bone left in his body, he just felt like jelly sinking into the sheets of the bed, melting a bit on the comfortable mattress. It was big, big enough for the both of them to sit quite comfortably next to each other with space left. The problem was that Donghyuck didn’t want _any_ space left.

Even if Mark Lee was the biggest and hottest nerd he’d ever met.

“Can’t you just draw all my regression lines for the rest of our lives?” Donghyuck groaned into the pillow, star-fishing himself on the bed. It caused Mark to laugh and fall back with him, turning his head to look at the younger boy. Donghyuck desperately tried to ignore the pounding in his chest.

“You’re going to have to learn that for yourself I’m afraid.”

It was silent, good like that, just their soft breathing mixing in with sounds from the open window. It was beautiful too, Mark with his cheek squished on his pillow, looking at Donghyuck so easily. The wind would blow lightly on their hair, pushing the black curls on his forehead away, tickling him enough to giggle. Donghyuck thought if there was ever a time to die peacefully, it would be now.

It was true he didn’t like Mark, it was obvious to everyone he didn’t. But it wasn’t always the case between them.

They’d met through their parents when they were only toddlers, not even old enough to remember their first meeting. According to his parents, Donghyuck had immediately attached himself onto the boy one year older than him like a koala and didn’t let go, causing Mark to cry in the end. They used to always be together, even into the years they did remember, they were inseparable and attached by the hip. Just the mention of either of them leaving the other would cause ruckus that nobody wanted to deal with.

Over time though, Mark started to become more independent and detached from Donghyuck, requesting for less play dates and more on his little book collection that he developed even in his young years. That hurt Donghyuck to no ends. He still remembered the nights he would come home from kindergarten and cry to his mother about the way Mark turned away from him that day and walked to the other side of the room or the way he wouldn’t play with him in the playground during playtime and stay inside to read instead.

By the time they started school, Mark was already one year ahead of him and in his own grade with his own friends. He didn’t need Donghyuck anymore. But what hurt him most of all, was the fact that Mark was always still there, even when he didn’t want him to be, he was.

When he fell down for the first time in the big playground and started crying, Mark was the one to held him close to his tiny chest and looked at his scraped knee, giving little kisses to it to make it feel better. When he was first bullied about the colour of his skin and his Asian facial features, Mark was there to punch them in the face and get suspended for a week after. When Donghyuck got his first award in school for helping the teachers, Mark was there to clap the loudest, even standing up in assembly to show him that support.

When he first got his first A in middle school, Mark was there to give him a high-five and a pat on the back. When he got his first fail in high school and ran away crying, Mark was there to run after him and sit with him silently until the boy felt better. When he got his first girlfriend, Mark was there to smile and say congratulations.

But when he came out to his friends and family, Mark wasn’t there to hold his hand as his voice shook and cracked under all the pressure he felt within himself. When he was beaten up in school that one time for being a ‘faggot’, Mark wasn’t there to pick him up and tell him to feel better. He wasn’t there bash up the people who did it, nor when his mother walked out of the house when he came out to his family. He wasn’t there when the principal suggested he repeat year 11 again because his marks were so low. He wasn’t there when Donghyuck lost his virginity to some jock from another school and came back home crying with tears of regret and nausea. He wasn’t there when he went and illegally got himself a tattoo on one side of his rib, a lion’s head the size of his palm inked onto his skin forever as a reminder.

And then suddenly he was there again, back at home with a fresh face that was suddenly clean and alive once more. He was back home, back at school, and back in Donghyuck’s heart. A heart that hurt with just the mention of his name. Because suddenly, Mark was in his grade, in his classes and only tables away from him each time he would turn his head.

It was a painful reminder. It was a painful reminder for what used to be.

“Do you ever regret not graduating with your own year?” Donghyuck suddenly asked, turning his whole body until he was laying on his side facing Mark.

Summer of 2017. Donghyuck would see Mark during family dinners or neighbourhood gatherings, Korean holidays and festivals too. Jaemin started to spend a lot of time with this girl in class, Lily, and Renjun with Jeno. Donghyuck didn’t feel lonely much, just bored most of the time.

Mark thought for a while. “Not really, I still talk to all my friends, it’s just that my dreams for the future were delayed a year. That’s all,” he said, smiling. Donghyuck really wondered if was _actually_ smiling.

Then came the shocking news that hit the students of the school hard, the families associated with the Lee’s and the friends. No longer was there a perfect boy standing by your locker each morning when the bells went, nor the smiling one that gave you your lunch to save you from lining up in the café. No, he wasn’t there anymore.

“Do you like it here better with us?”

Mark Lee, the boy with the perfect marks and perfect smile had been admitted to hospital due to heroin overdose at **12:03** in the morning on a Thursday. The goofy Christian boy who went to church with his family every Sunday was found in his room, frothing at the mouth and dead to the world when they found a bag of cocaine and bottle of heroin next to him, the needle still stuck in his arm. He was already mostly brain dead by the time the ambulance had come to him and it wasn’t expected that he’d survive.

But he did.

Mark smiled time, nodding sincerely like a teenager who’d just had his crush admit to him that they liked him back. Donghyuck guessed he didn’t really have that time to really be one.

“I do, I sit with Felix and them now and it makes me really happy,” he muttered, blushing slightly. “Being in the same as grade as you makes me happy too.”

The boy was in a coma for more than two months, every day Donghyuck and his friends would visit him just to sit down and talk about what happened that day, what was on the television in the morning. Every day he would lose a little more hope in his childhood friend to wake up, to come back to the world of the living. He didn’t understand if the world for the dead, the darkness was more appealing than a life filled with flowers and people, people that loved him.

One day when everyone was out except Lucas, Mark’s best friend, the damaged boy had moved the hand Lucas was holding, fluttering his fingers so weakly that if the tall boy hadn’t been paying attention, he wouldn’t have noticed. It was a miracle that someone was there beside him, and that someone was his best friend.

“How did you find out about my coming out to my parents, I never found out.”

Turned out, the school’s favourite student, the neighbourhood’s favourite boy, the family’s favourite son, had been under the influence of drugs for more than two years. Through year ten and eleven, he’d been using it to escape from a reality never meant for him. They’d done a mental assessment on him while he was still in hospital and diagnosed him with severe depression and type one bipolar disorder, even going as far to say that he showed signs of schizophrenia. Just that very information caused Mrs Lee to break down right in front of the doctors, holding onto her husband for dear life. It was the most heartbreaking thing anyone could’ve watched.

“Jen told me about it the day after it happened. I couldn’t do anything since I was still in rehab but I tried once I came out.”

After three months in the hospital, detained in his own little private room, Mark was finally moved into rehab with his own signature on the paper. He stayed there for another seven months where he had no contact with the outside world other than his weekly calls to home. Only ever three of those calls were to Donghyuck.

“Oh,” was all he simply said, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars Mark had stuck up on his ceiling. It was as simple as that, nothing behind the statement, no malicious double meaning. Mark meant everything he said.

The school had arranged that Mark take the whole year and proceed with his final year of school the next year alongside all the grade 11’s. From that moment on, no contact otherwise had been made with the boy and school, Donghyuck didn’t hear anything from the other than those three awkward calls that he reckoned the boy could’ve used to call his family instead. Everyday he went to the Lee residence and hung out with Johnny, helping him cope with the shock of his brother’s near death. Something that Jaemin liked to always label as attempted suicide.

Mark looked at him now, breath fanning their forearms as he stared wordlessly into Donghyuck’s bright eyes. There was no movement, no rush to prove or say something. It was just total calm.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you came home crying about that stupid jock too,” Mark whispered after a while, his hands slowly lifting off the bed. It was as if he was waiting for Donghyuck’s permission. “I could only imagine what it felt like for you.”

Donghyuck breathed in harshly and closed his eyes, nodding his head to allow Mark to touch him. A soft hand slowly brushed the fabric on the side of his waist and all he could do was let out a breath so ragged that the movements stopped again.

“No, it’s okay. You can touch me.”

This time, it was bit more sure, Mark’s light fingertips dancing on the creases made of his shirt. After a moment of contemplation, the hand slowly travelled up and rested on Donghyuck’s shoulder, a heavy weight that anchored him to the world he knew both he and Mark belonged to.

Mark spoke again. “Is this alright?” he asked, fiddling with the material at his neck. Donghyuck could only nod.

So the hand then continued, up and along his sensitive neck where the nails would lightly scrape at the soft skin, causing Donghyuck to gasp. It didn’t stop though, and it slowly danced along the curves of his ear, his sharp jaw where it felt like every nerve ending was located.

“Mark,” Donghyuck whined, pushing closer towards the boy until he finally opened his eyes again and saw him staring widely at the smaller boy. They both had big stains of red stuck on their cheeks, both too highly aware of the position they were in and who they were with.

Right now though, Donghyuck just didn’t care about any of that. All he wanted was the boy he’d been in love with for his whole life.

Without even waiting, Donghyuck held his breath and kissed Mark right when he wasn’t expecting it, both of them falling down into the mattress with the impact. It was so sweet that he couldn’t even believe he hadn’t done it earlier.

The kiss was sloppy and short, nothing special to outsiders spectating in on a couple of teenagers messing around. For Donghyuck, it was everything he could’ve imagined and more.

Mark was the one to pull away first, breathing like he’d ran a mile in those few seconds together. He just stared at the blushing boy, hand up to his lips to feel for it. He was completely mesmerised by the boy that was Donghyuck.

“Can I kiss you again?” he asked the boy, waiting patiently as he looked down shyly at his position on Mark’s lap and then up again at his lips. He nodded and that was all Mark needed.

This time, the kiss was fuelled with more fire, less saliva and a lot more aggression. The hands that held onto Donghyuck’s thighs when they fell over came up to snake around his soft waist, digging underneath the t-shirt to claw at the boy’s tanned skin. He was searching for more, biting at Donghyuck’s lips to ask for entry and using his hands to travel up higher along his back.

The boy on top moaned and arched his back for just like Mark wanted, barely conscious of what was happening in the moment. He let Mark do whatever he wanted to him, so pliable in the boy’s hands that it was all-consuming Mark’s blood. He felt so needy this secured around the older boy’s waist, his hands in his soft hair, tugging it so harshly he was sure that it hurt.

Minutes passed and it was becoming too hot in the bedroom, too much for Donghyuck’s body to handle. So, in all sense and fashion, he had to whine for Mark to do something about it, tugging on the other’s shirt to get the message across.

And get the message he did, sitting up so he could take off Donghyuck’s shirt and then his own, leaving them both bare for the cool breeze sweep past their skin.

“Fuck, Hyuck you look so beautiful,” Mark’s voice was rough with the lack of use, scraping away any sense of morality Donghyuck had left. He knew the boy was staring at his lion tattoo. He wanted Mark to see himself permanently inked onto his body. To admire everything that he meant in this short lifespan.

He moaned in Mark’s hands and took this opportunity just to look at his body while the other was distracted.

Mark was mesmerising, he already knew. He was pretty and funny and kind and handsome. He didn’t realise _how_ handsome. Those abs shouldn’t even be possible on a geeky boy like Lee who still marvelled about Star Wars and DC, not even the idea should be allowed. That glistening tanned skin that ran underneath his curious fingertips was sticky under him, the sweat that dampened his pectorals. And now Donghyuck desperately wanted to feel them under his tongue.

“Fuck!” a hand went up into his hair when lowered himself and went down to flick his tongue along the muscle of Mark’s nipple, watching as it became more erect. He did it again, mewling with his mouth closed when the hand in his hair tightened again. Right there in between Mark’s legs with the boy’s hands in his hair and around his exposed thigh through his shorts, everything felt right.

It felt so good.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!”

They both turned towards the door where Johnny stood with his hands covering his eyes. Mark scrambled up to pull Donghyuck to his chest, pulling the duvet around them.

“Hyung!” he shouted, head down like a child. They both felt so embarrassed right there, caught.

Johnny was too surprised to do anything. “I actually can’t believe this, please kill me God,” Johnny spoke up to the ceiling. He looked to the two culprits. “You two, you better get dressed and come downstairs. Dinner’s almost ready and I don’t want to see any of this.”

Just how he entered, he left with his eyes covered. The second he left, Donghyuck couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer, his giggles lighting up the room like a string of fairy lights.

Mark just stared up at him mesmerised, having him still securely placed in his lap. It felt like he was holding the sun in his arms, so warm and full of life. It was incredible to think that someone like Donghyuck could like someone as broken as him. So dirty and misused.

“You’re so pretty, Hyuck,” he stated, drawing the attention of the giggling boy. “Did you know that you literally hold my life in the palm of your hands?” he asked.

Donghyuck was confused; Mark couldn’t mean what he thought he did. It just wasn’t possible. “What?”

“Is it physically possible to hold the light of the sun in your eyes? Tell me, Hyuck, is it possible?” he asked once more. He needed the boy to understand.

Still, Donghyuck wouldn’t let himself believe what he was hearing. It just didn’t feel like God would give him something he wanted, it wasn’t possible that He would hear his prayers. People just didn’t get what they dreamed for like that.

Mark could see the stubbornness in Donghyuck’s eyes but felt that he had to try a bit harder. It wasn’t enough.

“You’re amazing, Haechan, you really are. Everything about yourself that you brush off, they’re amazing. The things you love about yourself, I love them too. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve met and one of the kindest. You have the kind of soul that people envy, a soul that I love.”

Donghyuck’s eyes widened. His heart couldn’t take any of this. “Love?” he whimpered. Love was a big word, Mark surely couldn’t mean it.

Mark just nodded and groaned when he tried to stand up, Donghyuck’s ass grinding against his pants when he moved. Both of them seemed to notice it, the hardness between the two of them. Donghyuck smiled, hands traveling down. He didn’t want to think about what Mark just said right now, he had time later.

There was no way Mark was going to survive this.

“Maybe we should look after this first before we go down, huh?”

This time they were sure to lock the door.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to see the party, i might write that as a seperate second part to it since i might make this a one-shot series. it could be fun this way.
> 
> if you liked this story, make sure to leave a comment about what you thought about it and if you want more cause these two have a lot left to go.
> 
> thank you and see next time. (also check out my other fic, their inferno if you haven't already) 
> 
> love you all, agas-safa xxxxxxx


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